The present invention relates to a plurality of electronic equipment and a connecting method or installing method therefor. More particularly, the invention relates to an installing method whereby a bus which is used as an interface for connecting a plurality of hard disk drives is installed to a backplane, an apparatus installed by the method, an apparatus which is constructed by an apparatus installed by such an installing method, the hard disk drives, and the backplane and to an installing method therefor.
A memory apparatus having a large capacity which is used by connecting to a large scale computer, a workstation of a high performance, or the like is constructed by a plurality of hard disk drives (hereinbelow, HDDs or drives). A miniaturization of the drive itself and a miniaturization of the memory apparatus are desired for the memory apparatus. It is, therefore, necessary to connect a plurality of drives at a high density in the memory apparatus of a large capacity. As a method of connecting a plurality of drives, a bus comprising a plurality of signal lines is often used. As a bus which is used as an industrial standard, for example, there is an SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) bus. According to an SCSI 2 as a standard, up to eight apparatuses can be connected to the same SCSI bus by using cables.
FIG. 10 is a perspective view showing an outline of a conventional drive. A drive 40 is connected to a cable 50 as a bus through a connector 20. In the external dimensions of the drive, a major side of the surface which is parallel with a disk 41 to record information is called a "depth", a minor side is called a "width", and a side in the stacking direction of the disks is called a "height" of drive. The connector 20 in the drive 40 is provided for a surface constructed by the width and height of "drive".
FIG. 11 is a perspective view of a conventional example of a case where a plurality of conventional drives are connected. In such a conventional example, three drives 40 are connected to the SCSI cables 50 as a bus through the connectors 20. In this case, by overlappingly installing the drives 40 in the direction of the height of the drives 40, the drives can be installed at a high density. However, there is a problem such that a handling of the cables 50 such as wiring or the like is difficult. A space for installation of the cables 50 is also needed.
To solve the problem, there is a method of installing drives to a backplane on which the bus has been installed. FIG. 12 is a conventional constructional diagram showing a construction of the backplane on which the bus has been installed. Bus signal lines 30 and connectors 21 to 24 for connecting the bus and the drives are installed on the backplane 1. The bus signal lines 30 are linearly wired among the connectors 21 to 24. Reference numerals 11 to 14 denote drive installing regions (hereinbelow, referred to as slots). In case of the conventional installing method, a plurality of connectors 21 to 24 for connecting a plurality of drives are connected to the bus signal lines 30 and connectors for the neighboring slots are adjacently installed on the bus signal lines 30. For example, in FIG. 12, the slot 12 is adjacent to the slots 11 and 13. The drive which is installed to the slot 12 is connected to the bus signal lines 30 by using the connector 22. The connector 21 for the slot 11 and connector 23 for the slot 13 are adjacently connected to the connector 22 on the bus. Therefore, a distance between the neighboring connectors (herein-below, referred to as an interconnector distance) is equal to a length of slot. When the drives are installed on the backplane at a high density, a length of slot is equal to a height of drive to be installed. Therefore, hitherto, the interconnector distance, the length of slot, and the height of drive to be installed are equal.
As mentioned above, when the drives are connected by using the cable, the connection distance between the neighboring connectors can be freely set by adjusting a length of cable. On the other hand, when the drives are connected at a high density by using the backplane, the distance between the neighboring connecters depends on the length of slot, namely, the height of drive to be installed.
One of the conventional examples in which the drives are installed on the backplane as mentioned above has been disclosed in, for example, JP-A-1-243284. According to such a method, a small magnetic disk unit is installed to a printed wiring board for connection through an electrical connecting portion.
One of the conventional examples in which the bus is installed to the backplane has been disclosed in, for example, JP-A-61-228519. According to such a method, a length of signal line between connectors, a distance between connectors, and a length of slot are set to be almost equal.